tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post3306549197545723716..comments2014-12-19T11:12:54.785+11:00Comments on Constructive QQ: Used gamesCoreushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10258450322199352185noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-29058707500563035672013-04-23T21:37:16.042+10:002013-04-23T21:37:16.042+10:00the idea that they put forth
I put that idea fort...<i>the idea that they put forth</i><br /><br />I put that idea forth. I&#39;m not arguing for anyone else here.<br /><br />I didn&#39;t mean to imply that I thought sharing steam logins was legal. I might be misusing the term fair use.Coreushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10258450322199352185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-2002182052205078162013-04-23T01:01:52.670+10:002013-04-23T01:01:52.670+10:00Thanks for the reply! I&#39;m still not convinced...Thanks for the reply! I&#39;m still not convinced, though. I think for me it hinges a lot on two things. First is the idea that they put forth that &quot;this is how it&#39;s been all along; you just didn&#39;t know it.&quot; I don&#39;t buy that for one second, and, frankly, it&#39;s insulting. The second is the language issue. If they&#39;ve sold me a game, well, selling implies an exchange of commodities for money, not access to a particular product. There&#39;s other words for that: fee, charge, subscription. I buy (and thus am sold) a pizza. I pay a cover charge for access to a bar.<br /><br />Also, I&#39;m while I agree that some people - often young people - fall into the whole anti-corporate frenzy of &quot;EA is evil&quot; and thus all game companies are and all they do is, but I don&#39;t feel that way. I just don&#39;t like what I feel is an attempt at trickery. If they called it access (which we&#39;re seeing now in regards to DLC) or renting, I wouldn&#39;t argue at all. But call it what it is, then. And if businesses did change their model to reflect that, I would completely respect it, and I doubt it would do much to game - uh - I can&#39;t say sales, can I? ...do much to their profit margin, either, as I suspect most gamers would just continue to do what they do: pay money to play.<br /><br />Incidentally, I checked fair use - something I&#39;m vaguely familiar with due to being an academic and using texts in my class - and I see nothing about the situation you describe. They all seem to be about research, commentary, and educational purposes. It seems that you&#39;re committing piracy, too, by all the definitions I&#39;ve seen. More power to you (;<br /><br />Regardless, great conversation, and thanks!Stubbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17504117180595337762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-61695527685834933552013-04-22T14:33:49.818+10:002013-04-22T14:33:49.818+10:00I&#39;m not playing devil&#39;s advocate. This is ...I&#39;m not playing devil&#39;s advocate. This is what I believe is right. The value of IP is good for our society, and so needs to be protected. Actually, I&#39;m a bit surprised that so many people have turned out to be so stubbornly attached to the idea of ownership.<br /><br />I think also a lot of the opposition to restricting used game sales comes out of an adversarial attitude towards big companies. They are bad so anything they want must be bad.<br /><br />Obviously the European law reflects a general consensus on the idea of data ownership being correct [or at least on companies being bad], but I still think it&#39;s wrong, and it&#39;s kind of a scary precedent for someone who would prefer that artists and creators be paid in proportion to their contribution to society.<br /><br />I also think that once the concept of digital property starts being enforced like this, all that will happen is that media companies stop &quot;selling&quot; digital products and instead use [much more correct] terms like &quot;access&quot; or &quot;rental&quot;, just to get around this kind of abstract definition. Probably a good thing for correcting consumer expectations, but hardly the intention of the law.<br /><br />Though that said, if consumers rejected being told that they&#39;re only paying for access, it may end up making more business sense to take the hit of potential used sales just to continue selling the concept of ownership. Now that would be interesting.<br /><br />As an aside, my housemate and I share all of our Steam and console logins to play games the other has bought-- nothing is stopping fair use sharing of digital products. But I don&#39;t have any right to sell something that doesn&#39;t belong to me.Coreushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10258450322199352185noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9006188268467255424.post-11363000116487475772013-04-19T04:17:41.327+10:002013-04-19T04:17:41.327+10:00I see that a majority of your argument here is pla...I see that a majority of your argument here is playing devil&#39;s advocate to the common belief of ownership, and that at the end you come back to acknowledge that in fact you don&#39;t feel sorry for those companies, but I have a hard time even getting through the whole &quot;use, not ownership&quot; without rolling my eyes. <br /><br />I&#39;m going to admit ahead of time that I have no data and have done no research to back this up, but I&#39;m going to go ahead and say:<br /><br />No one historically prior to this century ever suggested that end users don&#39;t own the products they purchase. When I bought a book, movie, or CD, no one suggested I couldn&#39;t resell it or loan it out.<br /><br />This whole revision of ownership only started when digital downloading became prevalent. Since then, the users have wanted to be able to resell finished digital games, but they had no format - no physical object - with which to do it. The companies had smartly found a way to put a stop to what EA once called &quot;worse than piracy&quot; - used game sales.<br /><br />Anyway, I, like you, don&#39;t have any sympathy for the game companies. I just refuse to acknowledge any legitimacy to their argument, as well. And so do the European Union courts, which recently ruled that end users do have a right to resell digital property.<br /><br />Great post!Stubbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17504117180595337762noreply@blogger.com